Audemars Piguet Wins Big At The GPHG

The 2023 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève is a wrap and the big winner this time around was Audemars Piguet. The company took home the Aiguille d’Or – the grand prize, given to the all around best watch of all the pieces entered – for its Code 11.59 Unverselle RD#4, an ultra-complicated hyperwatch launched in February of this year.

The RD#4, to shorten the full name somewhat (which is “Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Ultra-Complication Universelle RD#4”) is one of the most complicated watches Audemars Piguet has ever made, and its complications include a perpetual calendar, grande et petite supersonnerie, flying tourbillon with high-amplitude balance, split seconds flyback chronograph, and a moonphase display. The moonphase display is particularly interesting because unlike most moonphase displays, it shows the correct boundaries between the sunlit and shadowed sides of the lunar disk as seen from Earth – something that ordinarily can only be accomplished with spherical moonphase display (a specialty of De Bethune’s, and something of a signature design feature).

Audemars Piguet’s presence is a bit of an outlier in that of the top three independently owned luxury watch brands by revenue – the other two as of 2022 were Rolex and Patek Philippe, with Richard Mille a very close fourth – it is the only one to participate in the GPHG on a regular basis. Rolex participates as a group but typically with an entry from Tudor, and Patek Philippe, which originally supported the GPHG when it launched in 2001, by entering several pieces one of which was the hobnail bezel Calatrava reference 3919, has not participated in many years.

At the first edition of the GPHG in 2001, the Patek 3929 won the “Poinçon de Genève” prize, which is no longer a prize category – a lot’s changed in two decades.

Prior to this year Audemars Piguet has in recent editions of the GPHG, taken home several significant awards. In 2019, the company took home the Aiguille d’Or for the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Self-Winding Ultra Thin, reference 26586IP.OO.1240IP.01, which is a platinum and titanium version of the ultra thin RD#2. AP has also won awards for jewelry watches, including a win in 2015 for the Diamond Punk, an aggressively geometric high jewelry quartz powered “secret” watch. And in 2019 nobody was surprised when AP won the Iconic prize, for the Royal Oak Jumbo.

The GPHG has had its ups and downs over the years in terms of its perceived relevance to consumers, thanks to the structure of the awards – watches, to be considered, must be submitted by the brands which means that the “best” watch of the year is not necessarily the one most successful commercially, nor necessarily one from a widely known brand. With the entire Richemont Group and Swatch Group sitting out the awards every year (which was not always the case) and many other major brands either absent, or only present sporadically, the GPHG is not in a position to present a comprehensive take on the year’s entire horological landscape.

It does, however, excel at showcasing every year, some very unusual and often very interesting watchmaking and historically has given independent watchmakers, from Akrivia to MING and others, an opportunity to leverage visibility at the GPHG into visibility overall. Interestingly enough, two regular participants are BVLGARI and Grand Seiko, with the former winning notice for its record-breaking ultra thin watches in the Finissimo series, and the latter often making a strong showing in the dive and sports watch categories.

Although the details vary from year to year in terms of participating brands, I think the best way to thing of the GPHG is in terms of participating watches, for all that brands appreciate the halo a win can bring to a brand overall. The GPHG is often called, “The Oscars of the watch industry” but it is less that than a moveable feast of collectively curated timepieces which no other event can gather under one roof.